In the midst of a recent trend, Massachusetts is not at the forefront but may be reaching for the pinnacle. Eleven other states have banned conversion therapy, including New Hampshire earlier this month. But the Massachusetts bill is unusual, says Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“Similar legislation has been passed in a number of states, but this is the first time that helping your child feel comfortable in their own body could brand you a child abuser,” said Beckwith, whose organization advocates for Judaeo-Christian family values on Beacon Hill. “This is a bill that would allow the state to take away your daughter and make her someone else’s son.”

But [bill advocate Carl] Sciortino says the bill is necessary and humane.

“I think our opponents are delusional and adding to the culture of child abuse if they cannot accept that there are gay people in this world and transgender people in this world and we are who we are and no amount of quackery or child abuse will change that,” Sciortino said.

Do you see what they’re doing here? They are conflating homosexuality with transgenderism. Whatever one thinks of homosexuality and its mutability, there is very clear evidence that the great majority of children and teenagers who consider themselves transgender ultimately resolve their dysphoria in favor of their biological sex. We’re talking 80 percent and more. That does not happen with homosexuality. This clearly indicates that transgenderism is far, far less ingrained than homosexuality.

Transgender activists and fellow-traveling advocates are trying to piggyback transgenderism onto homosexuality as a legal, medical, and cultural strategy. As the reader writes:

The Therapy Ban in CA is bad, but this bill in MA may be even worse. It requires, among other things, that counseling a gender confused child to feel comfortable in their own body be labeled as child abuse under state law and that a Dept of Children and Families investigation be initiated against the parents and therapist. So, if you don’t believe your child is trans and you try to get them help, the therapist loses their license and you lose your child.

If you are a parent of a transgender child, your child has an overwhelming likelihood that he or she will desist at some point. If this bill passes in Massachusetts, you will not be able to get your child therapy that does anything other than encourage them in their trans identity — and no therapist will be able to do otherwise, even if the therapist believes the child is not truly transgender.

The “but science!” crowd is substituting ideology for medicine here. More to the point, the bill would create the possibility of the state seizing a child from his parents for the sake of gender transformation. From the story:

As for taking a child away from parents if they try to change their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity, Sciortino said state officials don’t break up families lightly, and that only in certain cases might it be necessary.

“That’s why we have judges and courts,” Sciortino said. “In this case, if somebody were being exposed to an abusive practice – in this case, abusive therapy – it makes sure that that child has the protection of the mandated reporter system, to see if an investigation is warranted.”

Do people think that this won’t happen to them? That their child would never claim trans status? That the state would never prevent them from getting medically valid therapy for the child? That the state would never take their child away so the child can be injected with hormones, and such?

UPDATE: Reader Ben H.:

I went to a family BBQ over the weekend. One of the people there was the young teenage daughter of a friend who recently decided that she is a boy. Coincidentally she identified this indisputable scientific fact about herself at the exact same time her best friend identified that she, also, is a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Small world, huh?

Over the course of the afternoon the girls said please and thank you, played one of those patty-cake games that girls play, went in to the bathroom together several times and spent a lot of times whispering secrets to each other. Amazingly enough, these girls, wait sorry, dudes didn’t spend a minute watching the Soccer final or the baseball game, and didn’t even ask the score.

Weird huh. It’s almost like they weren’t boys at all! Just really confused girls clinging to the latest fad, created for them by the powerful and spread via the wonderful people in the schools and the media.

These are the people liberalism will not help but will crush underfoot for the rich gays and guys-horny-for-themselves.

Siluan, I loved your point about the Materialist being inconsistent in regards to trans-sexuality. However, are the female and male brains really different enough to say conclusively which one is which? I know in the Myers-Briggs test, women skew towards feeling, men towards thinking. But the divide is only 60 – 40 in both cases. That means that 2 of every 5 women is a thinker, and 2 of each 5 men is a feeler. That’s hardly enough IMO to justify considering a feeling anatomical boy to be a girl, nor a thinking anatomical girl a boy inside. And there’s no such gendered distinction between the other three divisions in the test. Extroverted – introverted, sensate – intuitive, and judging – perceiving seem to be pretty much the same proportions between the two genders.

Rod has previously posted on the trend that many more girls than boys are identifying as transgender–usually being diagnosed as the “rapid onset” type (in other words, no previous history early in childhood of having gender issues).

This is pure speculation, but I can’t help but wonder whether the extremely toxic environment many young girls are growing up in has anything to do with this. Namely, the hypersexualization of girls, aggressive behavior from boys demanding nude selfies, and just the intrusion of pornified influences into a girl’s awareness at an age when previous generations still had years of innocence left. (Rod posted about the disturbing Spring Break documentary “Liberated”, and two of the female subjects in it described how all this pressure to be sexy started in middle school.)

I could understand how an overwhelmed young girl would find it safer to say “I’m really a boy.”

Ben H’s point is deeply un-compelling; there are boys, who identify as boys, who enjoy stereotypically “womanly” activities, and vice versa for girls who identify as girls. The fact that these two “trans boys” didn’t watch sports does not add any persuasive weight to what is being discussed here, which I largely agree with, and this post would be strengthened by removing Ben’s response from the body of the post. The biological reality of gender doesn’t need spurious social anecdotes to back it up.

“However, are the female and male brains really different enough to say conclusively which one is which?”

Yes. An MRI of a brain will tell, pretty much infallibly, whether the brain is that of a male or of a female. Some news reports tend to obscure this by emphasizing that the differences are a continuum, and that few brains are on the masculine or feminine end of the spectrum in every single respect. But on the whole, it’s very easy to tell whether a brain is male or female.

In our culture, both males and females are stereotyped (e.g. sports comment by Ben H) and subjected to being imprisoned within the cultural mindsets about what constitutes “masculinity” and “femininity”. It’s really tough to live up to those definitions, and if you don’t fit the mold, it’s really easy to entertain doubts about whether you’re truly a male or a female.

In addition, women are simply not respected in general. Study TV and magazine ads, and the story lines – and the costuming of women – in films pitched at one sex or the other. Remember that most of the people trafficked for sex are women and children. In cases of rape, how the woman is dressed is still an issue. Men insult other men by using derogatory terms that have reference to women.

If there is a father in the home who is emotionally distant and/or inattentive, children will be confused about their identity as male or female – not to mention environments where there is abuse by a father or a mother’s boyfriend. (Yes, I know women are abusive too – but all I’ve read suggests that it’s the father who has the most influence on gender identity.)

All the more reason for Christians to live in such a way that does NOT mirror the culture in these and other areas. There needs to be a visible contrast, not just more words.

There are actually differences that can be observed in brain function and chemistry. Male brains use vastly more grey matter then female brains while female brains use vastly more white matter than male brains. Female brains usually have a significantly larger hippocampus with a higher neural density(hence the stereotype of men as more forgetful is actually true). I read in one article that scientists are now aware of at least 100 differences between male and female brains.

As for the Briggs-Meyers, as a decidedly non-Materialist, I believe there are other factors at work behind personality than just the brain. But yes, I’ve also heard of the personality type skewing between genders. Although, interestingly enough, I’m a male INFP, which is rare. so I’m in the 40% category of males the lean towards feeling.

Noelle–you’re probably right. If you look at the stereotype of a typical “girl”, it’s of a boy-obsessed, ditzy and sexualized creature who is only interested in make-up and fashion. And sex. Don’t forget the sex. (Look at the crap that is in Teen Vogue, for example.) No wonder a lot of girls want to come to a screeching halt and say This Is Not Me.

Unfortunately, the only lesson we’ve held out to them is that they obviously MUST be transgender…..

I can’t speak for Panama, but Colombia has gay marriage and has had it since 2016 (by court order, because of course they do). They also have procedure for changing your legal gender *without* even requiring a medical or psychiatric professional to sign off on it.

They appear to be about where we are on gay and trans* issues, more liberal on issues like drugs and sex work, more conservative on abortion. A thoroughgoing conservative society they certainly are not.

Another thing that conservatives don’t talk about in this issue is how social conservatives who pushed a much more rigid form of gender expression (in response to the gay rights movement), may have ‘primed the pump’ on this in the culture. Look at the expections that trans who transition have about what thier body is going to look like…it tends to be a very rigid stereotype of femininity/masculinity that is not far away from a lot of the imagery in social conservative discourse about what men/women ‘should’ look like.

Media’s, and thus capitalism, role in this is also complety un-examined by by everybody on both sides. The very air on this issue is toxic on a lot of levels.

Ben H’s point is deeply un-compelling; there are boys, who identify as boys, who enjoy stereotypically “womanly” activities, and vice versa for girls who identify as girls. The fact that these two “trans boys” didn’t watch sports does not add any persuasive weight to what is being discussed here,

So someone could validly argue that the girls who said that they identified as boys and then comported themselves like girls might really be boys after all, but atypical boys? Is that your point?

which I largely agree with, and this post would be strengthened by removing Ben’s response from the body of the post. The biological reality of gender doesn’t need spurious social anecdotes to back it up.

Spurious anecdote? I heartily disagree. The observance of girls unconsciously behaving as delightful girls (in spite of feeling compelled to announce that they are boys due to the social pressure of a fad) helps put the lie to the transgender train wreck as much as anything. It gives hope that human nature may yet prevail in spite of this latest, most malevolent attempt to warp it.

How in the world can a Materialist believe someone can be “trapped in the wrong body”?

This is an expression used by some gender dysphoric people as a metaphor to describe their very complex experience. Few take this as a statement of physical reality; a male-to-female transsexual doesn’t believe he is really a biological female. Many trans people don’t think it applies to them even as a metaphor.

We do know that some individuals have a profound sense of discomfort with their gender. What science doesn’t make clear is what kind of treatments are the most efficacious.

How in the world can a Materialist believe someone can be “trapped in the wrong body”?

I’m not an expert on this, but I think perhaps you’re mistaking a loose colloquial expression for a scientific analysis. The materialist explanation of transgenderism would be that there are cases in which whatever brain circuitry tells a person s/he is a man or a woman is “wired wrong,” as it were, and is telling a person with a male body (and perhaps a brain with outwardly male physical traits) that he’s a woman, or vice-versa. That hardly seems impossible to me. It would be similar to the “phantom limb” phenomenon, in which an amputee’s brain tells him that he’s still got a left leg when he hasn’t, for instance. His brain is “wired” for the presence of left leg, and that remains true even after the leg is physically removed.

MRIs and such notwithstanding, we still only barely understand brain/mind issues. It does seem clear, though, that the brain/mind produces some kind of image or template of the physical body, and while this usually corresponds well with that body’s physical reality, in rare cases it might not. This requires no theory of a soul.

Intersex rights are supported in the UN and the EU which prevent interventionist surgery or medical treatment without the informed consent of the child – which at least suggests an age limit before which such interventions should be interdicted. https://tinyurl.com/y8qu9gvb Since a neurophysical difference is claimed from transgender children, that officially makes them “intersex” – that is they have physical characteristics of the other sex. Hence any such law is contrary to the UN agreement on their human rights; and counter to the examples being set in the EU – which is a more progressive region than the US. If you wish to claim that the difference is merely psychological rather than neurophysical then it is a condition which is potentially reversible with counselling, then they again have to accept that a child with informed consent can choose counselling rather than sex re-assignment as a form of treatment. It may require a test case to establish the fact but the Mass. legislature is acting in direct contravention of clearly stated human rights. Also, this is the first really good case I have seen for special protection of rights i.e. where assumptions about sex and gender lead to mistreatment that mean that rights in law need to be underlined by separate statements. It is ironic that the assumptions are those of progressives.

The point here is not whether a country is laissez-faire with respect to adult sexuality, but whether the state is going to seize your child and pump him or her full of hormones. That said, I was speaking off the cuff, and research would certainly be appropriate.

When corrected for size, brain scans cannot be used to consistently identify sex; in fact, the only time that brain scans can be used to correctly identify the sex of the person is in women who have given birth.

Ben H’s point is deeply un-compelling; there are boys, who identify as boys, who enjoy stereotypically “womanly” activities, and vice versa for girls who identify as girls. The fact that these two “trans boys” didn’t watch sports does not add any persuasive weight to what is being discussed here, which I largely agree with, and this post would be strengthened by removing Ben’s response from the body of the post. The biological reality of gender doesn’t need spurious social anecdotes to back it up.

I would ask this:

If a person feels himself to be a woman trapped in a man’s body; if a person feels “deeply uncomfortable with their gender,” how is it they “know” they are actually the “opposite” gender?

How does someone born a man have **any idea whatsoever** what it feels like to be a woman?

And what, for that matter, DOES it feel like to be a woman?

Is it a matter of buying into the social stereotypes – long hair and makeup and “girliness?” But if we say no, those things don’t make a woman – what does?

What makes a woman?

I have asked this question over and over and over again and never have I gotten a coherent response. And I suspect it’s because there isn’t one.

What makes a woman? Anything, apparently. What IS a woman? Anything you want it to be.

What is the DEFINITION of a woman? Again, whatever the person who identifies as a woman feels.

So how can we say someone is something if we have no concrete definition?

We know what a “car” is, or a “bird” or a “water bottle”; all have specific characteristics.

But when it comes to these “felt truths,” there are no specific characteristics. If you feel yourself to be a woman or a man, you are.

And, of course, the rest of us aren’t to question because that makes us haters.

Individual transgender people can do what they want; they of course don’t need my permission or anyone’s permission to be who they want to be or who they think they really are.

But to this notion – repeated to me again yesterday – that “transwomen are women, period,” I say -I can only agree if you can define “woman” for me, beyond “anything one wants it to be.”

” a male-to-female transsexual doesn’t believe he is really a biological female.”

So what’s the better solution? Some type of compassionate therapy like perhaps Cognitive Behavior Therapy to bring him to terms with his factual gender, or pumping him full of carcinogenic chemicals and surgically mutilating his body to turn him into a caricature of the opposite gender?

“The materialist explanation of transgenderism would be that there are cases in which whatever brain circuitry tells a person s/he is a man or a woman is “wired wrong,” ”

Would you care to estimate for me in what percentage of current cases the person involved is given an MRI or CAT scan to actually determine if their brains are “wired wrong”?

A hundred years from now, people will look back at this transgender stuff with the same shock and horror we now heed on the accounts of the Salem Witch Trials. Ironic that they both happened in the same place.

I wonder how much the issues certain traditional Christians have with transgender people are related to the -perhaps implicit and unstated- understanding that Male and Female souls are not identical, and that Soul and genitalia always match, no matter what the brain might be telling a specific person.

If Male and Female souls are the same, then what genitalia you have in your earthly sojourn should be of no consequence

The materialist explanation of transgenderism would be that there are cases in which whatever brain circuitry tells a person s/he is a man or a woman is “wired wrong,” as it were, and is telling a person with a male body (and perhaps a brain with outwardly male physical traits) that he’s a woman, or vice-versa.

That immediately begs this question: Are female brains hard-wired with a need to have the adornments and trappings of typical women? Does that explain why males with ladybrains must wear dresses or whatever attire is deemed fashionable for the season?

Could transgenderism be grounded in psychology, or is that just too far-fetched?

Jefferson Smith and MichaelGC each have valid points, which may turn out to be mutually complementary. Right now we don’t really know much of substance about trans-sexuality. It could be some of each causing something like it and we can’t yet distinguish the two or three or seventeen different contributing factors and manifestations of what seems presently to fit under a single label.

It would be interesting, if the empirics of female brains are distinguishable from the empirics of male brains, to study whether males who assert that they want to be women indeed have the empirics of a female brain in what is obviously an empirically male body, and vice versa.

I wonder how much the issues certain traditional Christians have with transgender people are related to the -perhaps implicit and unstated- understanding that Male and Female souls are not identical

On the one hand, Jesus said that in heaven we are not given in marriage as is done on earth, dispensing with the question of who a woman who has been widowed and remarried several times on earth will be the wife of in the next life. On the other hand, as far as earthly existence goes, God said that a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife. Oops, that doesn’t sound very patriarchal, does it?

But when it comes to these “felt truths,” there are no specific characteristics. If you feel yourself to be a woman or a man, you are.

And, of course, the rest of us aren’t to question because that makes us haters.

Yes, it is now such that someone’s asserted mental and emotional state takes precedence over hard fact. Even fairness in athletic competition must take a back seat to the PC transgender juggernaut. Last year in the deep-blue progressive state of Connecticut, there was just one trans-identified male, Andraya Yearwood, who was ruining girl’s sports for everyone else. This year, there are two:

Out of the corner of her eye, Andraya sees the girl running next to her. She sees kicking legs and swinging arms. And then Andraya sees the runner’s back. Andraya crosses the line in second, clocking a 12.5.

The winner is also a transgender girl and also a sophomore. She declined to be interviewed for this story. When the two race the following weekend, Andraya again finishes second.

Just let that sink in. That’s a boy taking first place and another boy taking second place in races at girl’s track meets, not just once but in two races. And, as ESPN notes:

The season isn’t over. There’s the conference meet and then the class championships. Andraya won’t face her again until the State Open, where they likely will run, each as a class state champion.

So boys are already starting to dominate girl’s athletics in Connecticut, and ESPN thinks that is just wonderful. I expect ESPN writers, like their colleagues at CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. to be absorbed by the transgender borg blob. There is no surprise there. However, there should be a special place in hell for those responsible for administering high school athletics in Connecticut, odious invertebrates who stand idly by and do and say nothing while the value of fairness and the dreams of girls are trashed into oblivion, all over the garbage concept of “gender identity.”

One other thing, in it’s extensive and splashy write up, ESPN conveys the tone that the the trans-identified males and the trans-identified girl (who competed against girls with the advantage of testosterone, a steroid) are trail-blazers (“They are the Champions”), soon to be followed by many other boys who will declare themselves female when they realize that there are significant rewards (fame, scholarships, etc.) to be had by leveraging their male physique in athletic competition against girls. So much to look forward to!

Would you care to estimate for me in what percentage of current cases the person involved is given an MRI or CAT scan to actually determine if their brains are “wired wrong”?

First, I think the number of cases of genuine “wrong wiring” that I was referring to (obviously that’s also a loose metaphor) is very small. Second, I don’t think MRIs would pick it up. This body-mapping phenomenon that I’m talking about what is apparently some kind of operation in the mind. MRIs can measure certain things happening in the brain, but they can’t read or probe inside the mind.

It is, however, clearly the case that the internal sense that one’s mind produces of one’s body can be wrong, i.e. mismatched to the physical reality. Sensations in phantom limbs demonstrate that, as do certain kinds of dissociative experiences (like, people having the feeling that their left hand isn’t “theirs”), and also, it would seem, some of the effects of psychedelic drugs.

@MichaelGC:

That immediately begs this question: Are female brains hard-wired with a need to have the adornments and trappings of typical women? Does that explain why males with ladybrains must wear dresses or whatever attire is deemed fashionable for the season?

No, and I think most cross-dressers are probably dealing with identity issues, not genuine transgenderism or some misalignment in the mind’s internal body-mapping. That said, it would not surprise me if one who genuinely was the victim of the latter phenomena might respond by trying at least to align him/herself culturally with the internally sensed gender. This could well include adopting the relevant “adornments and trappings.”

I thing the transgendered phenomenon that we are seeing can be attributed to a number of factors which makes any proper resolution of it extremely difficult. To be quite frank I am not sure if it really is a new issue per se or an unresolved one that we can no longer avoid now that the cultural landscape is shifting beneath our feet. Or then again it could be an unresolved problem that is compounded by the cultural shift. (See Hound of Ulster, @GrumpyRealist, Noelle, and comments I have made in earlier posts).

On the one hand there have always been a small segment of the population that identified as being a member of the opposite sex, of, being trapped in the wrong body. This was true whether they are living in a broadly tolerant or extremely oppressive climate. And males who were transitioning into female bodies often did so in overwhelmingly sexist environments. As a general rule males were given the more privileged and dominant role. That has to tell us something too. If you are fighting for the right to be a part of the underprivileged sex long before playing the victim card became a virtue something more has to be in play. Something integral to that person is stake.

I don’t buy into this theory that all gender is fluid and the transgendered experience is strongest because the gender fluid theory is wrong. You don’t go under the knife simply because you want to have the breasts/pecs or vagina/penis you never had. You go under the knife because there is some part of you , some inner voice telling you that you have to. “I need the breasts because I am really a woman.”

I have no doubt that some of them truly are transgendered and that the “materialistic” explanation applies to at least some of them and of course the sentiments behind the statement by one commentator doesn’t help.
(I have a sex but never felt that I had a gender identity).

Of course anyone whose gender identity confirms with their sexual identity wouldn’t feel like they have a gender identity. We cisgender people never had to give it a thought. Our gender identity and our sexual identity align perfectly and the sexual one takes precedent because we see ourselves every time we look in the mirror.

Those who feel like they are trapped in the wrong body do have to think about these things which of course means there is some part of them telling them they are of the opposite sex.

However, that may not be true about all of them, then or now. When you live in a culture where gender nonconformance of any type leads to ostracism, prison, rape, or death people who might otherwise seek treatment of one sort or another won’t. The unexamined life remains unexamined. Which means there can be no diagnosis, only guess work.

So we won’t know how many of them were or are truly transgendered and how many of them only think or thought they were transgendered because they were/are nonconforming for other reasons.

No one ever came up with a workable solution for who is truly transgendered and who was not because no one actually cared to find a workable situation for those who really were transgendered.

They were just wrong or immoral. God made male and female so anything that did not fall neatly within that too neatly explained cosmological religious fantasy must be a freak of nature. The goal was not to help them live out their lives as best they can but to “fix” them so they can fall in line with their “god-given” nature.

Some no doubt feel they can “come out of the closet” because the culture is changing. What was once left in the shadows is now spoken in the town center. Women, gays, lesbian, bisexuals and asexuals helped pave the way. The legal and cultural landscape has shifted in large part because of those hard-fought battles that led to our emancipation are now being used by the transgendered people.

But coming out of the closet as saying you feel trapped in the wrong body only goes so far. It still begs the question – now what? Why? Why does someone feel that way to begin with.

We need to know the underlying cause of why someone has a problem in order to find the appropriate remedy. Doctors don’t start patients on a chemotherapy or any medical regimen based an assumption. Diagnostic work up has to be done first in order to confirm the appropriate diagnosis. C-rays, MRIs, biopsies, cultural swabs. Counseling, interviews. Physical examinations.

It’s easy to diagnose some things, and Harder to diagnose others. Gender dysphoria falls into the latter category and the confusion surrounding the evolving social roles probably makes it harder.

Sure many of them might actually be transgendered. They may have the body parts of one sex and the brain and hormones of the other.

Okay. They may need to transition at some point in their life after their gender dysphoria is confirmed through the appropriate medical channels including comprehensive endocrinological, neurological and psychiatric counseling.
But we need that first before we can assume that someone is third-gendered. We can’t just take it at face value.

Complicating this matter further is the shift in cultural norms surrounding what it means to be a man or a woman. In the past men were expected to behave one way and women were expected to behave in a different way. Our sexual identities and our gender identities were defined for us by the rolls we played.

Men wore shirts with ties while women wore dresses. Boys played with action figures and ran around outside and played sports while girls played with dolls and played “house.” They raised to like different colors. Boys got the blue bedroom. Girls the pink. Boys did the outside house chores. They were raught car maintenance Girls did the domestic in house chores – cooking, laundry. Boys were raised with the cultural expectation that they will earn a decent living and provide for the wife he will someday marry and for the two-to-four kids they will have while the girl would be raised with the expectation that she will stay home and raise the kids she would have with the husband she would ultimately marry. If she had any desires to enter the work force and earn some money for her own spending needs she could be a secretary or teacher.

Those days thankfully are gone. Women can be whatever they want to be. The dress can be replaced by the pantsuit. And men don’t have to be hyper masculine. Men can be gay and marry men and women can be gay and marry women. Or not. They can be straight or gay. Or bi. Or asexual. It’s our choice.

I do not miss the past. I think society has changed for the better and I certainly, as a gay cisgendered man woukdn’t Want to live in a world governed by 1950s values. But this shift does make things more confusing, particularly since the cultural shift is incomplete. The roles may be changing but there are still roles and thought patterns even ones proven to be harmful are hard to wipe away.

We still have rigid cultural expectations even if the legal culture allows us to defy them.

How does one define oneself as a man or a woman in a world with evolving or fluid social roles? I guess for those of us who are cisgendered and suffer from no gender dysphoria it is easy. Look in the mirror. But what about those who think they may be transgendered?

Things might be even more confusing for them today then it was in the 1950s, and that makes the quest to come up with some appropriate medical guidelines even more crucial today. If they are transgendered they have a path to follow, but the question is, well, how do we determine who is gender nonconforming because truly transgendered (of a third gender) and who is gender nonconforming because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or asexual, and who is gender-nonconforming simply because they don’t fit into the artificially determined social roles set before them.

I have on previous occasions noted my concerns that some kids may be misdiagnosing themselves. I have no doubt that a part of this has to do with the concerns raised by Noelle, Hound of Ulster and @ GrumpyRealist.

If I was a girl or woman and expected to put out for a boy, if I was a girl and had to carry someone’s baby or if I was a girl and expected to live the domesticated life or make less than men or if I was raised to behave a certain gender-conforming way (and did not) changing my gender identity would be one way to put an end to the conflict and broaden my prospects and escape the harsh fate oppressive society placed on me. “I must be a girl trapped in the wrong body because boys aren’t allowed to like other boys. It’s gross.” Or vice versa.

Of course it might not be optimal or even a good solution to my problem if I wasn’t really transgendered to begin with but we can see this happening. Look at Iran where some gay people seek “corrective surgery” to legitimize their same-sex desire in a culture that would otherwise sentence them to death.

The ancien regime was bad. It needed to be replaced but the solution for those who think they may be transgendered is only getting more confusing. Then again maybe it always was and we were misdiagnosing them based incomplete observations of human nature,assumed social roles, and cultural values that were never valid to begin with.

Seoulite wrote “Some kind of material change is required for this to be taken seriously. Or are you suggesting any typical man who at any time claims to be a woman should be able to use women only facilities? Without dressing or acting differently in any way? I think you’re not, and very few are. Check out the guy in the UK who claims to be a woman only on Wednesdays in order to join a female only shortlist. Why was he rejected? Why are we putting him in a box?? Of course you know why, so let’s have a serious conversation shall we?”

Kgasmart wrote “What is the DEFINITION of a woman? Again, whatever the person who identifies as a woman feels.
So how can we say someone is something if we have no concrete definition?”

Not trying to troll here, but why can’t someone simply declare day by day (or hour by hour) whether they are female or male at that particular moment? By what “rule” can’t they do this? Cause isn’t the whole premise of “changing” genders simply based on the person’s feelings? And if yes, then by what right could you block someone being female at 2pm and then male at 3pm?
Or is the rule a person only gets one gender change per year (or month) or just once per life?

I still don’t see why there is a rule for competing in the NCAA or Olympics as a woman that a person has to have below a particular testosterone level before they can compete as a woman? Most high schools don’t have that rule for competing. Aren’t the majority of court cases on high school campuses regarding biological males using the girls dressing area just based on feelings? Shouldn’t it really should be based on feelings at that particular moment.?

So to Seoulite, by what logic was the man who says he is a woman on Wed rejected? (I searched and could not find this particular news item).

“First, I think the number of cases of genuine “wrong wiring” that I was referring to (obviously that’s also a loose metaphor) is very small. Second, I don’t think MRIs would pick it up. This body-mapping phenomenon that I’m talking about what is apparently some kind of operation in the mind. MRIs can measure certain things happening in the brain, but they can’t read or probe inside the mind.”

I’m not going to agree or disagree with this statement. However, it seems clear even from this line of thinking that the places the trans movement are heading today must be massive over-reactions.

Yup. There is a reason that boys’ sports and girls’ sports are separate divisions: boys have somewhat different bone structure, musculature, height, weight, etc. on average than girls do. Putting someone who has had all the long legs shaped by testosterone in a girls race because “I identify as a girl” is ludicrous. The division wasn’t made to “affirm gender identity.”

The same fallacy exists with the bathroom and locker room argument. We didn’t separate male and female to affirm anything, simply to provide some privacy. Letting someone break that privacy because they “feel” they belong there is bass ackwards.

As Anne said, it’s impossible, after correcting for size, to look at any individual brain and identify its gender. The differences between male and female brains are average differences, not absolute ones. But brain imaging scans on transgendered people do indicate that their brains are not like those of cisgendered people. For instance, transwomen’s brains are more “female-like” on average than cisgendered male brains are. This holds true even before hormone therapy. This means that there is most likely a physiological basis for this condition.

The same fallacy exists with the bathroom and locker room argument. We didn’t separate male and female to affirm anything, simply to provide some privacy. Letting someone break that privacy because they “feel” they belong there is bass ackwards.

Yes, about that. Have you heard what happened with the Gavin Grimm case? Ed Whelan has a great read on judge Arenda L. Wright Allen’s decision here.

This is the one where the 4th Circuit ruled for Grimm basis of Auer deference, then, after SCOTUS accepted the appeal, the majority in the 4th’s decision got hoisted on their own petard when a new DOE reversed policy, and SCOTUS remanded it back with instructions to reconsider the decision in that light, but Arenda Wright just went nuts on it (as did the 7th in the case of Whitaker). What should have been dismissed as moot is back with a vengeance.

Not long before, another Maryland federal judge decided for a trans-identified female in high school to start using the boy’s locker room this fall.

While the gay marriage thing was going down, with one district and circuit after another ruling for SSM and against the organic grass roots movement that robustly rejected it, I kept thinking that when it went before SCOTUS, they would fix it. As it turned out, the majority effectively just rubber stamped the lower courts’ decisions. Now, with one court victory after another piling up on the the side of the Ts, I wonder if we are heading for a similar end game here.

So what’s the better solution? Some type of compassionate therapy like perhaps Cognitive Behavior Therapy to bring him to terms with his factual gender, or pumping him full of carcinogenic chemicals and surgically mutilating his body to turn him into a caricature of the opposite gender?

The people who go to great lengths to seek out this kind of treatment are not passive bystanders. Typically, they do not go to a therapist and ask, “Doctor, what kind of treatment will you prescribe?” They go with their eyes open and with a strong motivation to have their bodies modified.

If they wanted CBT, they’d go to a CBT practitioner. If they want their bodies modified, they’ll go to a gender therapist to get their papers rubber-stamped.

MichaelGC, it was a little hard at first to tell whether you were challenging the empirical accuracy of my assertion, or, whether you were saying, yeah, I agree, but the courts are nuts, so you’re whistling in the wind. I think its kinda sorta the latter, but let me try to cover the ground thoroughly.

First, a ruling by a court of competent jurisdiction is an enforceable judgment and may be either accepted as persuasive precedent or become mandatory precedent, depending on the source of the ruling. But, that doesn’t interdict any citizen’s ability to criticize the ruling, and it doesn’t rule out for all time that the ruling may be over-ruled by a higher court, or reconsidered by the Supreme Court.

I never tire of reminding people who argue that the law will follow a certain established trajectory indefinitely into the future, that at one time there was a very firm ruling called Bowers v. Hardwick that was eventually overturned by Lawrence v. Texas, and there is no reason Obergefell could not someday be reconsidered, especially since its based on such sloppy reasoning.

I was making a statement of fact, not of jurisprudence. I am, however, happy to discuss jurisprudence.

I thought the 4th circuit’s deference to the Department of Education was misplaced.

The legal theory, for those who don’t look up Supreme Court decisions on line or write columns about them, is that when an administrative agency with special expertise in a given area makes a regulatory ruling, courts owe some degree of deference to that agency’s expertise. That can make sense. E.g., how much does a judge know about how many parts per billion of mercury is harmful to human health? The EPA has chemists, biologists, medical practitioners, on its payroll who know about that. Judges defer to their expertise. There are various degrees of deference, which we could go into another time.

I would maintain, and I doubt any lawyer made the argument as forthrightly as this, that the Department of Education has NO expertise in what makes a man a man, or what makes a woman a woman, and therefore the courts owed the department no deference at all. The 4th circuit offered no other basis for overturning the district court ruling that Grimm had no valid argument that the school district had any duty to admit a F2M trans-sexual to the boys’ facilities at school.

I might add that since the Dept. of Ed. letter was advisory, a court probably shouldn’t defer to it as creating a legal right or claim anyway.

Obviously, the 4th circuit disagreed, as you highlighted. Since the case is currently back at the district court level, the fourth circuit appeals court hasn’t even issued a definitive ruling since the Supreme Court remand.

What will the Supreme Court do? If the 4th Circuit upholds a district court ruling favorable to Grimm? I think that’s a rather open question. We know what the court did with same-sex marriage. I disagreed with that decision, for reasons many of us have hashed over many times already. IF a majority of the Supremes are on board with LGBTQWERTY as an indissoluble package, then the court will uphold the 4th circuit. I have doubts that Breyer, or Kennedy, are committed to doing that. I have trouble discerning what Kagen, Sotomayor or Ginsburg will do.

The whole Trans thing is in substance very different from the gay arguments. Its not a simple matter of “equality.” A lot of lesbians don’t want M2F trans-sexuals hanging out with them, much less as partners, and a lot of feminist women don’t want them either. A plausible argument for equality could more easily be made for homosexuals as a class denied equal access — it does take some real effort to untangle that plausibility.

Also, I have read court decisions where a higher court referred a matter back to a lower court underlining reasons to reconsider in the most polite and even implicit language, refraining from giving explicit orders. When the lower court refuses to read between the lines, the higher court can become quite offended and quite explicit in a subsequent ruling overturning the lower court. I think that might happen here.

It is however true that when ruling on a motion to dismiss, a court assumes all factual claims by the opposing party to be true. This formality may be convenient to the district judge, but it is the formal rule. It is easy to misunderstand what is going on. I know some people who protested that when a recent school shooter declined to enter a plea, the trial judge entered a plea of not guilty. I had to explain, its a formality. A trial cannot proceed without a plea, a judge may not enter a plea of guilty, the judge must enter a formal plea of not guilty on behalf of the mute defendant, so as to get on with the trial. There hasn’t even been a district court ruling on remand yet.

However, it seems clear even from this line of thinking that the places the trans movement are heading today must be massive over-reactions.

Agreed. The only claim on this I would defend is that there are rare cases of an actual medical condition that would answer to the phrase “trapped in the wrong body” — if we stipulate that that’s not a careful scientific description but just a colorful if loose metaphor, kind of like describing a viral infection as being “under the weather.”

But brain imaging scans on transgendered people do indicate that their brains are not like those of cisgendered people.

The SciAm article doesn’t make it clear, but the study didn’t have much to say about “transgendered people” in general, but only a select subset. The subjects were early-onset “homosexual” (i.e., attracted to their birth sex) transsexuals diagnosed according to WPATH standards of care.

Most “trans women” don’t fit this pattern; they are attracted to females and they transition later in life. In the “review” I’m linking to a single study is cited in which “their data did not support the notion that the nonhomosexual MtF brain was feminized.”

So it might be that there’s a physiological basis for some trans people but not for others.

One other thing, in it’s extensive and splashy write up, ESPN conveys the tone that the the trans-identified males and the trans-identified girl (who competed against girls with the advantage of testosterone, a steroid) are trail-blazers (“They are the Champions”), soon to be followed by many other boys who will declare themselves female when they realize that there are significant rewards (fame, scholarships, etc.) to be had by leveraging their male physique in athletic competition against girls. So much to look forward to!

Title IX requires schools to spend as much money on girls’ sports as on boys’ sports. Because so much money allotted for boys’ sports is spent on football, the consquence is that schools often have many more sports available for girls than for boys, to make sure they’re spending just as much money on the girls. So, for example, there’s a girls’ archery team and a girls’ equestrian team, but no equivalent for boys. That’s a wide-open field for a boy who is willing to say he thinks he’s a girl in order to compete and get scholarships in one of these sports.

First, a silly thing: if the kids were free to asume they were of the opposite sex, why couldn’t be free to change that decission later?

Isn’t democracy about being free to decide, and then to change your decission?

Second, there are some psychological differencies easy to notice between women and men: first, ladies show lateral though; it is very easy, and fast, for them to change from one perspective on an issue to another. Much more than for a dude, because we tend to go in a straight line -“A implies B, which implies C”. The fact that women change their perspective so easily and fast creates the sentation that they are as able to be consistent as men.

But many times it is necessary to change the perspective on a matter to resolve it.

Second they are more affective -but not necessarily loving- and emotional than men. I guess all those psychological differencies must reflect themselves on physiological/anatomical differencies in the brain and the endocrinical systems.

Third and last: someone mentioned if there were male and female souls in christianism. Well, I am not God, as every one can imagine, but my guess is that, if God created mankind male and female, and being christianism a personal/personalistic religion, in Heaven people is meant to remain the very persons they/we were in physical life, so a certain degree of gender difference should remain.

Another thing is, as Saint paul claims in Galatian 3, 28: “Among you, there isn’t neither man nor woman, neither jew nor greek, neither free nor slave, because you are all one in Christ”. I don’t think he meant neither a bluring mix or confussion type of mystic union or unity, nor the dissapearance of those differencies -specially, the biological/cultural- but an equality in human/spiritual value.

Sure, he should have been more explicit on decring slavery, but again, acceptance of others because of love is a little of taking them as they are, a little of all of us are woth the same.

MichaelGC, it was a little hard at first to tell whether you were challenging the empirical accuracy of my assertion, or, whether you were saying, yeah, I agree, but the courts are nuts, so you’re whistling in the wind. I think its kinda sorta the latter, but let me try to cover the ground thoroughly.

It was the latter, but I don’t think you are whistling in the wind. I succumbed to a paroxysm of misgivings and spilled them in my post, but I feel better now.
Thanks for the adept analysis.

Also, I have read court decisions where a higher court referred a matter back to a lower court underlining reasons to reconsider in the most polite and even implicit language, refraining from giving explicit orders. When the lower court refuses to read between the lines, the higher court can become quite offended and quite explicit in a subsequent ruling overturning the lower court. I think that might happen here.

I hope you are right. This judge deserves to get dinged. She’s the same one who was in such a rush to overturn Virginia’s constitutional amendment on marriage on Valentine’s Day (get it?) that a blooper slipped through in which she ascribed the phrase “all men are created equal” to the Constitution, when it is in the Declaration of Independence, a detail most 5th graders know. Between her and her clerks, that’s some sloppy work on a very important matter. I don’t think she is one of Obama’s better picks.

a blooper slipped through in which she ascribed the phrase “all men are created equal” to the Constitution, when it is in the Declaration of Independence, a detail most 5th graders know. Between her and her clerks, that’s some sloppy work on a very important matter. I don’t think she is one of Obama’s better picks.

That is indeed asinine for a judge. Or even a 5th grader. I’m generally not happy with Obama’s picks for the courts — but then, he’s really not a socialist. He’s a liberal. A pretty good one, but a liberal for all that.

I’m glad to see that the Gloucester school board is continuing to pursue litigation and not caving.